Stephen King - Revival

Unlike Claire, though, he had eaten his dinner. I remember that. Ate up everything on his plate and asked for seconds in a strong, clear voice.

There were guest preachers, arranged for by the deacons, on the next three Sundays, but Pastor Givens wasn’t one of them. In spite of being calm, comforting, and appropriate at Willow Grove, I expect he wasn’t asked. As well as being reticent by nature and upbringing, Yankees also have a tendency to be comfortably prejudiced in matters of religion and race. Three years later, I heard one of my teachers at Gates Falls High School tell another, in tones of outraged wonder: “Now why would anyone want to shoot that Reverend King? Heaven sakes, he was a good nigger!”

MYF was canceled following the accident. I think all of us were glad—even Andy, also known as Emperor of Bible Drills. We were no more ready to face Reverend Jacobs than he was to face us. Toy Corner, where Claire and the other girls had entertained Morrie (and themselves), would have been awful to look at. And who would play the piano for Sing Time? I suppose someone in town could have done it, but Charles Jacobs was in no condition to ask, and it wouldn’t have been the same, anyway, without Patsy’s blond hair shifting from side to side as she swung the upbeat hymns, like “We Are Marching to Zion.” Her blond hair was underground now, growing brittle on a satin pillow in the dark.

One gray November afternoon while Terry and I were spray-stenciling turkeys and cornucopias on our windows, the telephone jangled one long and one short: our ring. Mom answered, spoke briefly, then put the phone down and smiled at Terry and me.

“That was Reverend Jacobs. He’s going to be in the pulpit this coming Sunday to preach the Thanksgiving sermon. Won’t that be nice?”

Years later—I wasin high school and Claire was home on vacation from the University of Maine—I asked my sister why nobody had stopped him. We were out back, pushing the old tire swing. She didn’t have to ask who I meant; that Sunday sermon had left a scar on all of us.

“Because he sounded so reasonable , I think. So normal . By the time people realized what he was actually saying, it was too late.”

Maybe, but I remembered both Reggie Kelton and Roy Easterbrook interrupting him near the end, and I knew something was wrong even before he started, because he didn’t follow that day’s scriptural reading with the customary conclusion: May God bless His holy word . He never forgot that, not even on the day I met him, when he showed me the little electric Jesus walking across Peaceable Lake.

His scripture on the day of the Terrible Sermon was from the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, the same passage Pastor Givens read over the twin graves—one big, one small—at Willow Grove: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

He closed the large Bible on the pulpit—not hard, but we all heard the thump. West Harlow Methodist was full on that Sunday, every pew taken, but it was dead quiet, not so much as a cough. I remember praying he’d get through it okay; that he wouldn’t break down in tears.

Myra Harrington—Me-Maw—was in the front pew, and although her back was to me, I could imagine her eyes, half buried in their fatty, yellowish sockets and sparkling with avidity. My family was in the third pew, where we always sat. Mom’s face was serene, but I could see her white-gloved hands clenched on her large softcover Bible with enough force to bend it into a U. Claire had nibbled off her lipstick. The silence between the conclusion of the scripture reading and the commencement of what was known in Harlow ever after as the Terrible Sermon could not have been much longer than five seconds, ten at most, but to me it seemed to stretch out forever. His head was bowed over the huge pulpit Bible with its bright gold edging. When he finally looked up and showed his calm, composed face, a faint sigh of relief rippled through the congregation.

“This has been a hard and troubled time for me,” he said. “I hardly need to tell you that; this is a close-knit community, and we all know each other. You folks have reached out to me in every way you could, and I’ll always be grateful. I want especially to thank Laura Morton, who brought me the news of my loss with such tenderness and gentle regard.”

He nodded to her. She nodded back, smiled, then raised one white-gloved hand to brush away a tear.

“I have spent much of the time between the day of my loss and this Sunday morning in reflection and study. I would like to add in prayer , but although I have gotten on my knees time and again, I have not sensed the presence of God, and so reflection and study had to do.”

Silence from the congregation. Every eye on him.

“I went to the Gates Falls Library in search of The New York Times , but all they have on file is the Weekly Enterprise , so I was directed to Castle Rock, where they have the Times on microfilm—‘Seek and ye shall find,’ Saint Matthew tells us, and how right he was.”

A few low chuckles greeted this, but they died away quickly.

“I went day after day, I scrolled microfilm until my head ached, and I want to share some of the things I found.”

From the pocket of his black suit coat he took a few file cards.

“In June of last year, three small tornadoes tore through the town of May, Oklahoma. Although there was property damage, no one was killed. The townsfolk flocked to the Baptist church to sing songs of praise and offer prayers of thanksgiving. While they were in there, a fourth tornado—a monster F5—swept down on May and demolished the church. Forty-one persons were killed. Thirty others were seriously injured, including children who lost arms and legs.”

He shuffled that card to the bottom and looked at the next.

“Some of you may remember this one. In August of last year, a man and his two sons set out on Lake Winnipesaukee in a rowboat. They had the family dog with them. The dog fell overboard, and both boys jumped in to rescue him. When the father saw his sons were in danger of drowning, he jumped in himself, inadvertently overturning the boat. All three died. The dog swam to shore.” He looked up and actually smiled for a moment—it was like the sun peeking through a scrim of clouds on a cold January day. “I tried to find out what happened to that dog—whether the woman who lost her husband and sons kept it or had it put down—but the information wasn’t available.”

I snuck a look at my brothers and sister. Terry and Con only looked puzzled, but Andy was white-faced with horror, anger, or both. His hands were clenched in his lap. Claire was crying silently.

Next file card.

“October of last year. A hurricane swept onshore near Wilmington, North Carolina, and killed seventeen. Six were children at a church day-care center. A seventh was reported missing. His body was found a week later, in a tree.”

Next.

“This item concerns a missionary family ministering to the poor with food, medicine, and the gospel in what used to be the Belgian Congo and is now, I believe, Zaire. There were five of them. They were murdered. Although the article did not say—only the news that’s fit to print in The New York Times , you know—the article implied that the killers may have been of a cannibalistic bent.”